CHAPTER TEN – DENBRIGHT
RAGS TO REVOLT
My intelligence team and I are sifting through another round of Hatch House leads as the sun goes down outside the honeycombed dome of the Beehive. Suddenly, Maddox, Renee, Bradley, and Ford burst through the front doors. "Director, you need to take a look at this..." Bradley says with an urgent look. Maddox flips on the camera feeds along the left wall.
Cooks, refusing to work, sit in the hallway outside the Greasy Spoon. Medical attendants have assembled on the front steps of the Medical Circuit as security guards try to will them back inside. An Infinity Court scribe in the crowd spilling across the Quad holds up a sign reading, "Lift the Lockdown!" In the east, the renovation of the orchard tool shed has stalled; construction workers have laid down their hammers and saws. The Monorail car in the south lays dormant, the conductors standing in a cluster at the base of the track. Cameras feeds from the living compartments show armed guards beating refugees back into their rooms.
"We need to make an example out of some of them. The refugees have no discipline because they don't fear us," Maddox says, practically spitting venom at the screens.
"I think the lockdown is doing more harm than good. If we give the refugees what they want, things can settle down," I say, eyes planted to the floor.
Maddox groans. "We can't stand down. They'll walk all over us when they realize how big the vacuum of leadership at CANARY is right now. And unlike you, I don't appreciate being stomped over."
"We have to find another way besides discipline," Ford interjects with a reassuring look in my direction.
"Oh, I have..." a sugary voice pipes up from behind us. Press Secretary Fiona Flicklis, trailed by her usual entourage, saunters into the Beehive. "Public relations expert, at your service!"
"What d'you have?" Renee asks.
Fiona approaches the screens and squints at the strikers. "Well... if we can't scare the refugees into obedience, our only peaceful option is to distract them." My eyes collide with Fiona's, and behind her thick layer of makeup, she wears that same hesitant smile from before the Sedona speech. This bread-and-circuses approach is coming straight from D.C., and I have a feeling it will not be optional.
Fiona turns to the group and bellows, "Ramp up entertainment events! Colosseum shows! Crossaim sporting matches! Extravagant feasts in the Greasy Spoon! Galleria restaurant specials! Spawn more Ragamuffins in our labs to wait on people hand and foot. Hold a memorial for the dead Sedona soldiers tomorrow afternoon to show some compassion. Trust me... having done PR for a living, I know how to paint a glossy sheen over anything." Fiona strokes her scarlet talons against the table next to her as her entourage waits eagerly for her next command.
"That could work..." Renee relents.
"Not aggressive enough," Maddox says curtly.
"You want our own civil war here, too?" Fiona fires back, approaching Maddox as if he were an annoying bee she needs to extract from the hive. Maddox lowers his gaze, and with a sardonic grin, Fiona pulls out her tablet. "And here's a list of all the refugees who weren't part of the riots that we can pay off to publicly support Denbright's administration. Maybe that'll encourage others to calm down."
I manage to quell the disgust threatening to register on my face. "I trust you, Fiona. We'll lift the lockdown tomorrow and put these measures in place. Tell your team to draft me a statement. And schedule the Sedona memorial."
Fiona nods. "Will do, will do. Also, I wanted to speak with you about the FCC's reporting that Tourtombee's been running a targeted social media campaign urging people to join the Red Doves. We should talk about maybe—" But then a ding from her tablet breaks the press secretary's concentration. She peers down, and her illuminated eyes widen at the screen.
"What's wrong?" I ask.
Fiona appears to have aged a thousand years when she peers back up at me. "Alert from DHS and the White House. Turn on the news... Any channel...."
Bradley fumbles for a remote and turns on a nearby monitor. The broadcast shows a dark street shrouded in smoke and debris downtown Chicago near Soldier Field. A thunder cloud blackens the night, drowning out the city lights. A voiceover coating the newscast states, "Three suicide bombers appear to have detonated explosives at Soldier Field this evening. Suspects are still at large. The bombers are believed to be anti-establishment militiamen and Red Dove sympathizers...." Fumes cloud the damaged stadium and adjacent streets. Throngs of people are scrambling to safety. Shrieks can be heard across the avenues. "And we are now receiving word of related shootings at restaurants within a half-mile of the stadium...." The news reel slices to police barricading behind armored vehicles in the street. Cops fire at armed men in homemade armor crouched along the sidewalks. "Two hundred and twenty-seven people have died with almost five hundred injured, but the death toll is expected to rise...." Cut to a metal barrier wrapping around the Mayor's Office. Emergency vehicles evacuating all government buildings. Sirens wailing along Michigan Avenue. Millennium Park ordering an evacuation of all its visitors. "Safety precautions have been put in place amid growing threats against the Governor's family by citizens claiming inspiration from the Red Doves. This is still a developing story, but many are already drawing similarities to 9/11 and the 2015 terrorist attacks in France...."
"We need the Secretary of Homeland Security on the line now!" Maddox orders an analyst.
"None of the refugees can see this," Fiona demands. "If we're lifting the lockdown here, cut all these feeds from the televisions. Black out the Commons Billboard..."
But then, out of nowhere, the Chicago bombing newscast fades to black. Static ripples across the screen. "What the hell happened?! Get the footage back!" Maddox hollers. The screen buffers, the dark square shifting as if unsure what message to broadcast. Then the innocent gray eyes of one Michael Rhodes loom out of the darkness, staring down at me for the first time in an eternity.
Everyone in the room gasps to the point where almost no air remains. My knees buckle. Bradley steadies me. I try to inch toward the screen, and the crowd of intelligence workers make a path. I stare up in shock at the other half of the legendary folktale now come to life. Back from the underground. Back from the dead. Stepping into the sunlight himself for the first time in sixteen years.
Michael's eyes hold the same gray as the day he left, but his face has become withered and pockmarked. His chestnut hair has faded to a salt-and-pepper shade. Michael stands in a dimly lit room at a scarlet podium. "Greetings, America. The world. I am King Tourtombee. I suspect many of you doubted I was even alive, or perhaps never existed at all. But this is folly, as my legend is all too real... for many of us.
"I want to thank my supporters, both already indoctrinated into our organization and those spreading our message around the country on their own terms like tonight's patriots in Chicago. While violence is despicable, the practice is necessary to force change; these abductions over the past decade and a half are essential sacrifices for our collective future. And I can assure everyone that all abductees are being taken care of here, and no one is being forced to stay in our nest. We are simply telling people what they already know. Enlightening them, if you will...
"My friends, you are allowing yourselves to suffer under the thumb of a neglectful government, exemplified by CANARY's repeated failures to offer their citizens even the most basic of protections. You may as well join the side willing to accomplish something and deliver on their promises. Our revolution carries on the legacy of successful uprisings throughout human history, but we will not waste time with peaceful demonstrations and suffer through a Bloody Sunday. We are the protestors, armed as soldiers, who stormed the Winter Palace during the Russian Revolution to topple their government. And in the footsteps of Lenin, we propose rule by the forgotten laborers, free from the Empire."
Standing tall at the scarlet podium, Michael clenches his fist and raises his perpetually passionate voice to the tone of a battle cry, "If any Americans out there feel insecure... in their work... in their place in a changing world... in a society advancing past the need for you... even in themselves...." His gray eyes find me, and I inch closer to the screen, a comforting feeling returning to my soul. The memories of our time in Manhattan surface again. I can almost feel his breath as he speaks, "... then join me. If you want to find us, you need only look. Bombs away...."
Michael winks at the camera, and his old charm nestles inside me once more. I imagine others in their homes all across America stepping toward their dusty television sets toward the man who could shift earthquake fault lines with his charisma even without a single specific proposal. All Michael needs is to reach a person's heart with broad promises independent of ideology, and suddenly that person is his.
Michael continues, "I will close with a quote from the famed populist Theodore Roosevelt: 'Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure... than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.' My friends, I have lived in that gray twilight, but our dawn is nearly upon us. And trust me when I say: the Red Doves will come home to roost...." Michael raises his fist as the screen darkens again.
The crowd of analysts falls silent, shell-shocked. When I turn my back to the screen, Bradley gives me a defeated grin, as if he knows that he does not stand a chance with me as long as Michael lives. As I walk back through the crowd, a reel of distant memories with Michael, separated by miles of blackness, clouds all my reality.
"Do you want some water, Director?" Fiona asks. But I just tear over to the Beehive exit.
"Aaliyah, hold up—" Bradley tries to call, but I am too far gone.
Rock by rock, the avalanche has begun to fall. The riots and strikes at CANARY Headquarters. The violent protests and spiking abductions around the country. The Red Dove sympathizers' massacre in Chicago. The war-mongering demonstrations on the international stage. All capped off by an address from King Michael Rhodes himself...
The canary has cried, and the mine is set to explode.
* * *
Later that evening, I sit in the Director's office with the Chief Panel of Advisors and a team of Beehive intelligence specialists. They position themselves in a semi-circle in front of my desk. Ford, Renee, Maddox, and the others all eye the floor in discomfort, waiting for the call. Finally he puts an end to our agony....
A hologram appears on the desk, and the frigid eyes of President Bessemer emerge. He is accompanied by his Chief of Staff, the FBI Director, the Homeland Security Secretary, the Director of National Intelligence, and the Joint Chiefs, who all stare down my team with icy eyes. A tense silence fills the air.
Bessemer's voice chills the office as he begins in a low whisper, "You know... once there was an empire five thousand years ago that considered itself the most advanced civilization in the world. Immune and permanent... Today, we call them 'Ancient Rome.' Ancient, as in past. Gone. Fallen. Defeated. You think the Romans ever imagined a world without their rule? No. And here you all are carrying on their legacy of complacency and sitting here under the assumption that the United States will last forever. But this shining city on the hill will be thrown down the slope if the Red Doves succeed. The chaos we see coming out of other regions of the world will consume our little piece of rock this side of the Atlantic. The Red Doves aren't just an unorganized mob blowing up a stadium. Or storming the U.S. Capitol Building in empty protest. When their brainwashed army finally descends on D.C. after years of training and planning, their revolution will be unstoppable. Our country, system of government, the Constitution... everything from 1776 will end. All because we have one deranged man operating outside the law with zero accountability, and we've done jack shit about him!" The president's voice escalates to a shout, "250,000 abducted and counting! Over eighty times as many victims as 9/11! People disappearing by the day! Even military leaders and weapons designers have been abducted and brainwashed to their side! And with billions of dollars at your disposal, CANARY has done absolutely fucking nothing...." Bessemer slams his fist, his level-headed demeanor as distant as the Wind Riders. "... about any of this. We are failing!"
My cabinet members, trapped in silence, bow their heads. But the president presses on, "The NCTC... the FBI... the U.S. military... other intelligence agencies are working with CANARY and DHS in as much a capacity as they can given the revolutions they have to contain overseas. Why the hell did we send a portion of their staff out to Puerto Rico if CANARY was planning on giving us nothing?! This task force has one job! And the only people standing in the Red Doves' way are on this call. No one else is coming to your rescue. No one else is showing up with all your answers. I already have to place the country under martial law to clean up this mess, and I'll have to call the first military draft since Vietnam if the Red Doves decide to launch soon...."
"Mr. President, if I may—" Maddox growls.
"You may not, Maddox!" Bessemer bellows. The president then turns to me. "Aaliyah... find the Hatch House or pack your suitcases so I can put someone in that chair who can end this chaos." Without another word, the hologram dissolves.
We sit in stunned silence. Moonlight gleaming through the stained-glass windows illuminates the shameful crimson blushing my face. No one can speak. No one can move. But the grandfather clock in the corner ticks onward....
* * *
After a fitful night's sleep, with the President's ultimatum rattling around inside my skull, I wake before the dawn, even as the responsibility of finding and containing the Red Doves has never felt more impossible. I head to a meeting with decryption specialists from the Beehive. Marco Ramirez, a former CIA analyst, sits across from me with his colleagues from CANARY's interrogation department. Representatives from the National Security Agency beam into the meeting via hologram. Everyone seems just as motivated yet terrified after the president's tirade yesterday.
The hard drive recovered from the Sedona Recruitment Center is hooked to my desktop computer. Documents from the safehouse cover the screen. "Good morning, everyone. I've been working through the Sedona material with my staff since the raid and would like to relay our findings to make sure we're all on the same page. Now... if you look here...." I angle my desktop toward everyone and scroll through the typed messages dated two months ago. "Our decryption specialists decoded the ciphertext of these messages back to plaintext by cracking their program algorithm and hacking the Red Doves' encryption key. This allowed CANARY to access the original memos written by Sedona Recruitment Center workers, and we recovered messages sent from Sedona to the Edgewater Inn in Charlevoix, Michigan...." I zoom in on the content of one text:
JA, More $$$ in our budget after next Zenaida payments. RDs to approve more on-site security and staff. -CS
The NSA representative stares through the hologram at the message. "If they're discussing mutual funding, then both locations could be Recruitment Centers."
"Precisely," a Beehive surveillance specialist replies. "But the Edgewater Inn hasn't ever been confirmed as a Recruitment Center. The place hasn't ever been on CANARY's radar."
"I've requested all abduction and missing persons data in Charlevoix County from my staff, which I will be reviewing with my Chief Panel of Advisors later today. We'll have more intelligence shortly," I add. The NSA representatives nod.
Marco clears his throat. "We also need to form a strategy for the Sedona detainee's interrogation today...."
Within the hour, Bradley and I are standing behind a sheet of one-way glass overlooking an interrogation room in the underground dungeons. My signature cups, one of ice chips and one of hot coffee, rest beside me. Tilly Tartar, eager and restless, fiddles with Bradley's tea saucer at the general's side. In the interrogation room below, Renee Ramsey sits opposite the Red Dove from Sedona. The dungeon ceiling hangs oppressively low over the detainee, a stocky young man in his early twenties, handcuffed to the table. The Red Dove's golden brown eyes dart frantically around the cell as if he needs to soak in every detail regardless of how much his environment seems to terrify him. Beads of filthy sweat drip down his golden face and pointed nose, and rings of midnight coat the skin under his bloodshot eyes.
"How... h-h-how many years was I in my cell?" he utters to Renee.
"Three days." Renee pauses. The prisoner crunches his eyebrows in confusion. She gestures to a metallic gold tube on the interrogation table. "The Plodder implants a program in your brain to slow down your perception of time, so each day feels like fifteen years. Standard protocol for all Red Dove detainees. Makes you all much more cooperative..."
The Red Dove's pointed nose wrinkles as he clenches his jaw. "You all r-really are the monsters Tourtombee always claimed." The Red Dove spits on the table in protest and tries to wriggle free from his restraints. He reaches for the walls as if the panels will slide open and lead him someplace safe. But he is a leaf cut off from the tree that gave him life, away from the god who built his world.
Disregarding his comment, Renee continues in an even tone, "Anyway... state your name for the record."
The Red Dove narrows his golden brown eyes. "I'm not telling you anything."
"No matter. Then I'll just start with some—"
The Red Dove scoffs. "Of course my n-n-name doesn't matter. Not to your kind..."
"Excuse me?" Renee asks, taken aback.
"Of course you don't understand."
Renee straightens her posture as if to regain control of her own interrogation. "As I was saying, I'm going to start with some basic questions. Where, to the best of your knowledge, is the Hatch House? Is our intelligence based around a single facility housing all Red Doves still correct?"
The Red Dove takes a long pause to make Renee squirm in discomfort. "Even if I were allowed by the Roos.ts to know or even leave the base, I wouldn't b-betray the heroes trying to save this country from the likes of you."
Renee rises to her feet and begins pacing around the cell. The Red Dove shuffles uncomfortably in his chains. "Are you aware of any Recruitment Center in the Charlevoix area? Is the Hatch House itself based there?" She nears the Red Dove's chair, towering over him.
The prisoner grins unconvincingly as he tries to maintain his bravado, but a fleeting glimpse of fear flashes across his golden brown eyes. "T-Tourtombee always said giving information to the enemy was bad war strategy. B-b-besides... you'll never find him. H-he's one of the disappeared ones. Off the edge of the w-w-world..." The Red Dove's stuttering comes off as the product of someone whose persona has been forced onto him by another. Does the Red Dove believe what he says? Does he agree with the violence he has committed?
Renee caresses the metallic gold cube on the table. "You know... I can put you back under for another forty-five years if you're planning to be difficult."
The Red Dove's body visibly quakes even as he leans closer to intimidate Renee. "You already brought me here as a prisoner. P-put me in a cage hidden underneath your massive glass towers. Forced my m-m-mind to perceive reality in the way you want. What else do I have to lose that you haven't already used your power to take from me?"
Renee returns to her seat. "We can give you everything you could ever want here if you cooperate."
"I don't trust a word c-coming out of your mouth."
"I don't think you trust the words coming out of your mouth either," Renee counters. The prisoner lowers his gaze. She continues, "Is this show you're trying to put on how you really feel? Or just the propaganda Tourtombee forces you all to repeat until you forget your own view of the world?"
The Red Dove hesitates. "At least I don't support that socialist you all elected to the White House," he hisses, steadying his voice and ignoring the question.
Renee gives him a quizzical look. President Bessemer is as much a socialist as a bee is a butterfly. "Tell me... who is the president of the United States right now?"
Without hesitation, the Red Dove answers, "Salma Hayworth. She wants to take everything from us. Make the government so big, and the establishment so deep, that none of us will ever have a shot in the world. But Tourtombee will save us soon. He actually cares about the people you're tossing into cells to snuff out the truth!"
Bradley and I share a concerned look behind the glass. "What's he talking about?" I ask.
"No idea. Who the hell is Salma Hayworth?" Bradley replies.
As I stare into the eyes of this golden-skinned boy, I spot purple bruises snaking up his arms, and my heart yearns for him. "He's living in a much different version of reality than we are. However Michael's brainwashing the Red Doves is working."
"How can we get through to him?" Bradley asks.
After a brief pause, an idea lights up my mind. "We have to let him form his own opinion based on real-world facts outside of the Red Dove bubble. Maybe we'll come to trust us." I click on a microphone connected to Renee's earpiece. "Renee, instead of going to him, we have the kid come to us. Let's call the guards and take him to the librar—"
But right then, Stripe General Maddox bursts into the interrogation room below to stiffly my momentum. "Time's up!"
"Stripe Gen—" Renee falters.
"Out!"
Renee hastens out of the room and enters the viewing area. "What the hell is he doing?!"
"Um... excuse me, Stripe General..." I mumble through the PA system.
"Shut it, Aaliyah. I brought a few guests..." Maddox gestures to the refugees trailing behind him. "Thought the Red Dove might want to hear what his revolution has done to these poor families."
"Maddox, you can't just walk in here and—" I try to contest.
"I am the head of the Miners, and I'm going to do things my way...."
"M-Maddox, I d-d-don't think this is the right approach. We have to be more rational," I splutter from above.
But Maddox just glares at me, his pinched pupils sending shudders down my spine. He flips off the power switch on the sound amplifier and guides the refugees to the table like props.
"Are we just going to let this happen?" Bradley asks me. "The Red Dove shouldn't see us all screaming at each other. We need to be on the same message to gain his trust."
I feel a strong urge to rip Maddox away from the interrogation table, but an older, more powerful force keeps me locked to my chair. "I-I don't... Let's just see where this goes..." I resign.
"This is a bad idea..." Bradley warns. Renee nods in agreement.
Maddox begins shouting at the Red Dove, "Tourtombee isn't going to help anybody! How do you not see that? Look at what he did to these people!" One by one, the refugees share their stories of lost family members. For what feels like an hour, we just allow the refugees to give the Red Dove hell. At first, the kid appears confused, his bravado gone, but this confusion soon sours into overwhelmed frustration. He begins lashing out at the refugees as he fights to break from his chains.
Suddenly, Bradley stomps toward the exit. "Where are you going?!" I demand.
The general's face contorts in fury, the kind of undisciplined rage Bradley never wears. "Forgive me, Director... but I'm not going to watch your boss tear down this brainwashed kid for every bad thing the Red Doves have ever done!"
"I agree this strategy won't work, but talk to Maddox! The approach was his idea."
Bradley clenches his fists. "You don't get it, do you?!"
"Get what?" I say, taken aback by Bradley's shift in tone.
"What Maddox is doing is one thing. But sitting here and doing nothing as the director of the whole damn operation is infinitely worse. The kid's not going to talk for weeks now!" Bradley slams his hand into the wall and stomps out into the dungeon hallway.
I follow him outside along the metal-grated floors. Pulses of electronic light dash along the surface of the walls, and steel cell doors line the corridor. "Bradley... Bradley! Come back!" A chorus of raspy screams by caged Doves echo from inside the cells. I chase the general through the labyrinthian dungeon and pass guards marching on their beats.
Finally, at the end of a dimly lit hallway, Bradley turns around to face me. His American flag pin is obscured by shadows. "I've been loyal to you for years, so saying this truly pains me. But my primary focus has always been saving this country so it can live up to its promises, and I'm not sure you're the right person to lead CANARY. At least not this current version of the Denbright I know. Makes me feel like I'm wasting time behind a leader who can't move us forward..."
I stop in my tracks, shell-shocked. "H-how could you say that, Bradley?"
"You don't lead! Ever!" His shout echoes down the hall. Bradley pauses and lowers his eyes to the flag pin on his camouflage uniform. "Maybe it was all a myth, after all...."
"Of course I lead!" My voice cracks.
"Then what was that back there with Maddox?" Bradley contests. "You're always waiting for the opinions of the men around you or caving to their will! Since when do you need their approval?"
Numbness sinks into my stomach and I freeze, staring into the eyes of the only man I can trust. I take a deep breath before answering, "I need their approval because their disapproval has always been what has held me back inside. My entire career I've been shot down, questioned, picked apart... everything. Bessemer gave me the position, and Maddox just trampled all over me to take what he saw as his!" The lights along the wall cast shadows over my jewel-encrusted hijab.
Bradley's face softens, his clenched jaw easing. He pauses before placing his hands on my shoulders. The same ancient lull returns. "I'm sorry for losing my temper. I understand you've faced obstacles that never existed for me. But eventually you have to let go of the past if you're ever going to be CANARY's future. Look... I've seen you at your peak. You can read a case file like the back of your hand, and you can take the reins here if you get out of your own head. I've stuck by you all these years for a reason. Besides, not everyone's out to get you. You trust me, right?"
"That's different." I wave my hand dismissively and pull away.
"It really isn't." Bradley lets out a chuckle. "In case you haven't noticed... I'm a white, Republican, Christian man. And things seem just fine between us. More than fine, actually..."
I guess with all the fresh and rotten apples in the world, a rotten one shouldn't spoil the whole bunch. Maddox may be rotten, but I could pick out a few fresh ones with a simple walk through the Beehive. Maybe I have more support here than I even allowed myself to think. Maybe this phase of my career could be different if I kept a lid on the past and refused to let it spill over into the present. Maybe no one would question me in the Director's chair if I could escape the voices inside my head long enough to push back against the ones on the outside.
"Thank you, Bradley, for your honesty. I'll try to put a better foot forward. And you're right... maybe not everyone is out to get to me." I chuckle and move closer to the general.
"Maybe not." Bradley grins, and then shifts his footing as his eyes find the floor. "Look... Aaliyah... I... uh... I know I'm not... well... particularly skilled in this department. And I've never made this part of life a priority because family was never in the cards for me. My dad was an asshole, and I can't ever have kids. But I... well... I finally think I've found someone worth focusing on outside of work. I've had my head in the sand for too long instead of focusing on others. I know this is bad timing, given everything going on, but I would never forgive myself if I didn't... You know... Before anything happened...."
An antique force pulls me back from the returning lull, and I take a step away from the general. "What... what are you saying, Bradley?" I ask, almost dreading the answer I crave.
Bradley takes a deep breath through his nostrils. "I like you, Aaliyah. Not just as a casual fling. And I want to be with you in whatever capacity you'll allow me."
I place my fingers under his chin and force Bradley Buchanan to stare back at me. But then his brown eyes fade to gray. "Bradley... I... uh... I'm flattered, but... I-I can't..."
"You can't?"
"I played the game and lost, and I..." A lump forms in my throat. "I... I just think... the cards are off the table for me now. I'm sorry."
Bradley offers a forlorn grin with a glance of understanding. He starts to walk away, and I find my fingers reaching for his back. Halfway down the dungeon hall, Bradley turns around. "I hope you can heal long enough to pick up the cards, even if you're not resetting the deck to play your next game with me. I still meant what I said about you being a great Director. And when the universe calls on you at a moment like this, I'm afraid you don't have a choice. If you can't lead CANARY for yourself, do it for the Michaels of the world." Bradley shoots me a glance of understanding, as if encouraging me to do what I need in order to reset the deck, even as my second chance strolls off into the shadows.
Just as my work life is so consumed by a past of prejudice that I cannot exist in the present without holding myself back, my love life is so consumed by a past of acceptance that I cannot exist in the present without holding anyone but my greatest enemy....
* * *
Michael and I hugged on the front doorstep of his ranch house. The last neighbors coming to pay their respects strolled back down the driveway, leaving a heavy silence in their wake.
"You held yourself together well, Michael. Let's go inside..." I rubbed his back and led him into the living room.
Michael, teary-eyed and intoxicated, stared at the photo of his father above the fireplace. A black bow was tied around the frame. "Dad didn't need to die," Michael said, his words slurred. "Neither did Mom..."
"I understand how you're feeling, Michael."
"Dad's death was completely avoidable! This is bullshit!" He shoved away my comforting hand and stumbled into the kitchen.
"Michael!" I said, chasing after him.
Michael reached for a bottle on the countertop. "Why do you think he had the heart attack, huh? He'd been rationing his insulin!" He threw the bottle against the wall, and glass shards flew everywhere.
"I thought I gave you enough money to cover his healthcare costs."
Michael let out a sarcastic huff. "Yeah... because a few months at full supply is going to make up for years of being undermedicated." He set his eyes on his father's threadbare armchair in the living room. With another swig, Michael marched over and pushed the chair out the front door and on to the parched brown lawn.
"Michael! Stop!" I cried as I dashed out the front door. Michael headed into the garage and brought out a rusted toolbox. He tossed a bloodred hammer on the grass before grabbing kerosene and a pack of matches. "Michael!" I tried to wrestle the items out of his hands, but all that earned me was an elbow to the face.
"Leave me alone! Why'd you even come back for the funeral?" Michael doused the armchair in kerosene, struck a match against the driveway pavement, and set off a massive blaze in the front yard. "Gone with the rest of him..." He stomped back inside and slammed the door.
I grabbed a hose and spent the next fifteen minutes snuffing out the fire. As I walked back through the front door, my eyes caught the makeshift grave marked by a birch wood cross in the backyard. Michael had fallen into a drunken slumber on the couch.
And when Michael woke in the morning, he looked around with dazed eyes and said, "Where's Dad's chair?"
I set down breakfast on his lap. "Michael, you burned it in the front yard."
His eyes widened, and he hurried over to the window to look at the burnt shell of his father's prized possession surrounded by a patch of burnt grass. "Why didn't you stop me?"
"I tried. Please sit down... Michael... look, I know losing a parent is hard. We all go through this eventually."
Michael remained at the window, back toward me. "This is just so unfair..."
"I know, I know..."
"No, you don't know, Aaliyah." He rounded on me and narrowed his eyes in my direction. "You don't know what watching your parents wither away is like, especially when there's nothing you can afford to do to help even when you're working eighteen hour days. You just hopped off a first-class flight from your penthouse in the sky!"
"Michael, I'm not the enemy here," I said in a flat tone.
"Then who is?" Only the heavy silence lingering around the dusty old house had an answer. Michael wiped away his tears and continued, "I'm sorry for yelling. Thanks for coming to the service, Aaliyah. You didn't have to."
"I wanted to. I'm glad we've been able to keep in touch since Topeka."
"You still trying to convince me people from the government can care about what happens around here?" Michael said sarcastically with a chuckle.
"Absolutely. Sorry if I'm too little, too late."
Even as Michael grinned, a certain contempt remained in his eyes as he peeped out the back door at his father's grave. "I'm already regretting putting his body back there. I don't want to look at that cross every day."
I glanced around the empty house and recalled the first dinner here. Michael's face lit up around people, but now that fire had been extinguished. I stepped between Michael and the window to the backyard. "Say you didn't have to. Say you came back to Manhattan with me for a couple weeks. Just to refresh for a little..."
"Aaliyah, I have work tomorr—"
"I'm not saying forever, but would you rather spend the next few weeks being reminded of Dad every time you see the empty living room? Or the burnt patch out front? The grave out back?"
Michael hesitated, but a pinch of curiosity flickered in his hungry eyes....
And the very next week, we were stumbling into my penthouse apartment after spending the day shopping to update Michael's wardrobe. Scores of bags dangled from our wrists as we hauled today's load onto the spotless kitchen island. A glass chandelier hung above the pristine kitchen next to a living room full of plush white couches overlooking the Manhattan skyline.
"What do you want for dinner after we put all your clothes away?" I asked.
"I don't care. As long as you're paying..." he said, running his fingers through his flowing chestnut hair.
"We're just going to end up ordering the same thing as the last two nights, aren't we?" I cackled. "Reggie's. Plain chicken breast. Boiled broccoli. Mashed potatoes with a sprinkle of black pepper," Michael and I recited in unison. We both hated spicy food, preferring the blandest plate imaginable.
Michael's hungry eyes lit up when our steaming platters of takeout arrived. "Still not used to more than one hot meal a day. And this one I don't even have to share with the neighbors." He gripped the platter with his calloused fingers, clean of the dirt that had caked under his nails. Before I even finished making our drinks in the kitchen, Michael had inhaled his food. Once Michael Rhodes' belly was full, and his mind was finally free, the crinkle-eyed smile from the night of the neighborhood dinner returned in full force.
And every night around dinnertime, we would plop ourselves on opposite sides of the couch and watch television. One night I looked over at Michael's pockmarked face and noticed he had changed. In only a week, he seemed like a different person, away from the daily anxieties of poverty and the desperate struggle to keep his father alive. Here in this glass tower in the sky, Michael could finally just take a breath.
Every morning, I would head to work at the CIA base in Manhattan, and Michael would spend the day exploring the city on my dime. I would return home every evening after another brutal day and hear about Michael's adventures: Hudson river yachts, lavish lunches, 9/11 memorial visits, museum tours, art shows, and more. Michael's initial week-long stay gradually extended. He never mentioned returning home, away from the safety net I had strung for him, and I never pushed the subject because his company grew invaluable in the empty penthouse.
"Are you sure you don't want to go back?" I asked one morning.
"Are you kicking me out?" he said, concern flooding his eyes.
"No, no, not at all. I like having you here. But don't your friends miss you?"
"They'll be fine for the time being. Eleanor was the only person of real importance to me back home, but now that she's made it in the world, I don't feel a pressuring urgency to return to an empty house."
Another night after dinner, as we sat on the couch overlooking the crystal city, Michael asked me, "What keeps you up at night, Aaliyah?"
"What do you mean?"
"You live in this luxurious penthouse. You have access to a world of thing the city has to offer. What worries could possibly fill your days?" Michael said, gesturing to the cavernous living room where every word echoes.
"Work, mostly."
"At least you can worry about the job itself, rather than finding or losing one."
"I guess you're right," I said, unsure how to respond. "What keeps you up at night, Michael?"
Michael sighed as he sipped on his gin and tonic. He began gnawing the inside of his cheek again. "Making it to the next billing period with a roof over my father's beating heart. But now, nothing. I never realized how much your mind could wander when it isn't cluttered with how to just get by." Michael's gray eyes animated, a sense of dormant idealism stepping into the light for the first time.
"And where has your mind wandered?"
Michael grinned. "I almost don't even know. The idea of never doing anything of a higher purpose never sat right with me. But my life didn't allow much time for inspiration." I thought back to that frame on the wall listing young Michael's dreams.
"That's why I joined the CIA: to aspire to something greater than myself. But my identity doesn't inspire much out of many people I work with."
Michael gave me a sympathetic look, and a weight started to lift off my chest. "I guess we're both fighting an uphill battle to change the world."
"I guess we are," I said, holding his gaze.
"Maybe we're proof that a rich Manhattan socialite with a hijab and a poor white boy from the country could actually have something in common," he said, chuckling.
I laughed. "So what do you want to do now that you have the time and space to change the world?"
The storm clouds rolled across his gray eyes again. "I still don't think I have enough of an education or resume, regardless of how much you've allowed me to dream now."
"Did you finish high school?" I asked delicately.
Michael averted my gaze, staring out the glass tower instead. "Nah. I worked odd jobs to support the family after Mom got hooked on pills. College was out of the question even before my grades went south at that crappy school. Military seemed like the best option..." He took another swig of his gin and tonic. "Me and Louis went to basic and deployed to Iraq after 9/11. Never looked back..." Michael's lip trembled slightly he recalled Louis's demise.
The lens of my childhood was now tinted with guilt. I had been born into luxury with no achievement of my own to a pair of supportive parents leading successful financial careers on Wall Street. Then I had been shuttled into elite private schools and attended Johns Hopkins without paying a dime of my own earned money. I had never held a care in the world about something as common as money and opportunity.
"Well, Michael, if you ever need anything—job recommendations, open positions, resources, money, connections—I'm here. You could even work in the city and stay here. Become anything you want to be..." Michael stared across the city with a slight grin as storm clouds started to gather overhead.
After work the next day, I sat at the dining room table waiting for Michael to return home. I sulked, my head lowered. Soon enough, Michael burst into the kitchen with an armful of shopping bags. "You wouldn't believe what happened on the way back from the... What's wrong?"
"I just had a rough day at work, same as usual."
"I didn't think you knew what a rough day was. Seasoned CIA gal like you. What number year is this? Eighteen?" Michael flashed a goofy smile as he tried on his new watches from the jewelry store in Battery Park City.
"Apparently my experience doesn't matter," I sighed. "Whatever I do isn't good enough. Whatever I say is put into question. Every room I walk in, some of the guys just stare at me as if asking why I'm even allowed there. Sometimes I'm sure they have meetings just so they can have one without me."
"Are you sure you're not being paranoid?"
"I'm not! They're just completely unprofessional around me." I folded my arms.
"Look, Aaliyah..." Michael peered at me with those clear gray eyes as he set down his watch. "You're the only person who was against the truck mission in Iraq. If more people were like you, Louis would've never died. In my book, you should be running the whole operation down there." Michael's pale face shined in the chandelier light. For some reason, his approval meant more to me than even my late parents' support.
"I appreciate that, Michael. Truly."
"You should walk right up to your supervisor tomorrow and give him the finger. Start sticking up for yourself. Call them out in the moment to make them uncomfortable. Some things are worth getting over-the-top passionate about," Michael said with a smirk. Just like at the neighborhood dinner, he always talked to people as if they were of unmatched importance. Michael's words escaped his mouth with such ease and confidence that one could not help but be persuaded. As our shared gaze prolonged, I realized maybe I could assume the best qualities of myself that had been lying dormant.
Over time, I no longer felt like a stranger was living in the penthouse. We had an easiness, a sense of trust, a give-and-take that became incredibly comforting. After a lifetime of feeling scorned, I could finally allow my walls to fall. Bit by bit, Michael settled into a life of comfort, the gnawing of his cheek subsiding with each passing day. Bit by bit, I settled into a life of comfort, the distress of my mind lessening with each validating pep talk. We became each other's rocks of support.
Little did I know Michael's rock would soon be thrown into my glass tower in the sky. And how quickly that tower falls....